MIAMI–A banking app aimed at U.S. immigrants said it has raised $27 million in a funding round.
The app, called Majority and which launched in early 2020, will also begin allowing customers to open an account without providing a Social Security number or other U.S. government-issued identification, the company is reporting.
CEO Magnus Larsson, who is Swedish and is in the process of moving to Miami from Stockholm, told the New York Times his own experiences in trying to immigrate to the U.S. have played a role in the app’s design.
“One thing we produced, because of my experience and because COVID made things harder, was a migrant handbook,” Larsson told the Times. “The culture barrier and the needs that you have when you are moving to another country are quite large. We want to be a cultural reference. Whether you come from Cuba or Nigeria, the person you meet when you start to work with our company will be someone from the same community.”
Larsson said the company has people from the community selling and marketing the app, often through one-on-one situations. “They are outside contractors, but are people who want to be in marketing and sales, not customers recruiting others,” he said. “We want this to be a career path into the financial services.”
Emphasis on ‘Knowing’ Customers
How is the app able to offer financial accounts without formal U.S. forms of identification? According to Larsson, the company has spent significant time working on the sources to verify that the person is the person they say.
“Our ambition is to be better than any other bank at knowing our customers and where they live,” he told the Times.
The app charges a $5 monthly fee but says it saves customers up to $21 a month on fees such as overdrafts and ATM charges.
The services being offered by Majority can be found here.